Elvish is alive and well...

Tolkien fever has brought a flood of tourists to Oxford to retrace the steps of their favourite writer, reports Herald correspondent Paul Daley.

On just about any day, the Eagle and Child pub is likely to be frequented by some of the more eccentric residents of - and visitors to - the ancient university town of Oxford.

Outside this 353-year-old watering hole there is a very obvious clue to its attraction for Middle-earthers: on the wooden sign, a soaring eagle clutches a swaddled baby. All those familiar with the works of John Ronald Reul Tolkien know that his characters have been rescued by eagles.

Those who are not familiar with such works but who happen across this pub will be struck by the tone of conversation.

Over pints of bitter and pipe tobacco, the talk is of Middle-earth, monsters and ents, of hobbits and orcs.

This was the pub where a group of giant literary figures known as the Inklings, which orbited around J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, drank in the 1940s.");document.write("

advertisement

");
}
}
// -->

Every day Oxford attracts dozens of people from around the world who are following the trail of Tolkien. They want to see the seven houses in which he lived and worked while professor of English, the Bodleian Library where he pored over the Old English dictionary, and the college where he studied as an undergraduate at Exeter College.

The recent release of The Two Towers, the second movie of The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, has sparked even greater interest in "Taruithorn", Tolkien's elvish name for Oxford, while giving him greater recognition as the greatest modern proponent of fantasy literature.

"They can be an odd lot ... but they're harmless and they just want an opportunity to feel close to their idol," says one regular drinker at the Eagle who is not a Tolkien devotee. "There's certainly more and more of them since the films."

Indeed, New Zealand-born director Peter Jackson's first two movies in the rings trilogy, The Fellowship of The Ring and The Two Towers, have introduced a new generation of younger fans to Tolkien's works and re-acquainted others who read the books as children.

While Tolkien's work was enormously popular with the political and social counter-cultures of the 1960s and 1970s, it has always attracted an eccentric, "nerd-ish" following. But the movies have drawn a new, mainstream focus to Tolkien's works and, not least, made them even more cutting edge for academics.

Britain's enduring fascination with Middle-earth is obvious in the bestseller lists.

Last week in The Sunday Times, for example, The Return of The King was seventh, after 16 weeks in the paperback fiction top 10 sellers; The Two Towers was 10th, after 18 weeks. Books with Tolkien themes are also hugely popular. The Lord of The Rings: The Making of The Trilogy ranks eighth in general paperbacks, while Bored of The Rings a "hippie-era satire for Hobbitophobes" is the fifth-highest selling hardback novel.

On September 2, J.R.R. Tolkien will have been dead for 30 years. But today his Lord of The Rings trilogy and some of his lesser known works are more popular with the reading public than when they were first published. Any book which bears his name is almost guaranteed of success.

Postgraduate and undergraduate academic interest in Tolkien - and studies of medieval Anglo-Saxon language - throughout the world, meanwhile, is blossoming.

Michael Drout, a 34-year-old medieval language expert and professor of English at Wheaton College in Norton, Massachusetts, is considered to be one of the most exciting - and lucky - academics of Tolkien today.

In 1996, while studying a dissertation on tradition and inheritance in Anglo-Saxon texts, he visited the Bodleian to study Tolkien's notes for his famous 1936 lecture series Beowulf: The Monsters and The Critics.

At the bottom of the box of Tolkien's writings Drout had expected to find a few pages of notes in the author's spidery handwriting.

Instead he hit the academic jackpot; hidden underneath some previously published writing were about 200 hand-written pages recording Tolkien's interpretation of the great Anglo-Saxon poem.

After extensive negotiations with lawyers representing the Tolkien family's estate, Drout was given the go-ahead to publish the new material in Beowulf and the Critics, a book which is perhaps the most eagerly awaited English academic text of the year.

Drout, who was introduced to Tolkien when his father read The Lord Of The Rings to him as a child, is also working on the world's most comprehensive database of works about the Oxford professor and author. He is also setting up Tolkien Studies, a yearly journal dedicated to the best academic pursuits of Tolkien ... and reading Tolkien to his young daughter.

Meanwhile the young professor has already helped to revive a dying language through his computer software, King Alfred, which helps students to speak and write Middle English, the language which so captivated Tolkien as an academic and inspired his later literature.

Drout says there has definitely been a revival of interest in medieval literature in recent years.

"But I don't know what is the cause of it. My medieval Anglo-Saxon classes have been full. The students find that it's really wonderful literature; hopefully the films will add to that rather than harm it."

Since he discovered the papers and compiled the book, Drout says, he has attracted his share of "loonies, whose attention one attracts by working on anything related to Tolkien".

Like Drout, Dr Michael Woodcock spent seven years tracing the footsteps of his literary hero, Tolkien. Woodcock, who was a lecturer for seven years in medieval renaissance literature at Oxford before moving to Ireland's Cork University recently, says the study of Tolkien - and his popularity among everyday readers - is increasing dramatically.

"It was a wonderful experience walking in his footsteps because my interest, like Tolkien's, is in philology (the study of ancient language). So it's absolutely wonderful to see where he sat in front of the Old English dictionary and to see where he lived and worked. I've also, through my work at Oxford, met a lot of people who worked with and knew Tolkien."

"Usually it is the other way around - people have read the book and then they see the film. Certainly that's the case with

Harry Potter. And I think the reversal of that trend in Tolkien's case, whereby people are seeing the films first and then becoming very interested in the books, is fascinating," he says.

"It's incredible to see how many different editions of Tolkien's work there are today, especially in paperback. I'm always amazed when I am on planes and trains, at just how many people are working their way through the Tolkien volumes."

Most British universities now have active Tolkien societies which arrange for experts to talk to members about their hero. Some members indulge themselves by wearing Tolkien character costumes and even speak their languages.

Oxford University's Tolkien Society - which has undergraduate and postgraduate members - has the natural advantage of being able to trace the master's steps underneath the dreaming spires.

"There his been an awful lot of interest in our Tolkien Society website recently," says the website manager, Glynn Kennington, a student at Hertford College.

"A lot of people just type Tolkien into Google to see what comes up, and they visit our page. We get several emails each week from people, some who are studying Tolkien, and who want to know more about his life and works."

Why is Tolkien suddenly so popular?

"It's almost certainly the films - I can't think of any other reason for it," Kennington says.

Meanwhile the Oxford-based Tolkien Estate, which is managed by the solicitor firm of Manches and Co, has had to deal with an ever increasing volume of requests to approve merchandise, literary, artistic and academic projects under Tolkien's name.

Recently a coffin manufacturer wanted to launch a new range using the J.R.R. Tolkien moniker. So, too, did a slipper manufacturer. Both requests were declined.

In The Two Towers, Aragorn smokes a pipe. This will almost certainly prove a setback for anti-smoking lobbyists and trigger a rush to market pipes in Tolkien's name.

The estate was, however, happy to allow Drout to publish on Beowulf and Tolkien. As a result, new generations will be introduced to the great Anglo-Saxon poem.

In the words of Merlin Unwin, the son of Tolkien's first publisher: "Beowulf is a wonderful story and if you put Tolkien's name to it, it would probably be a great success."

So, what of the Tolkien pilgrims in the Eagle and Child?

"Yes, they do have that reputation for eccentricity," Woodcock, himself a former Eagle and Child regular, politely puts it.

"And there is something delightful about that whole smoking and drinking world of Middle-earth - that sense of heartiness and having a good time because tomorrow it could all end, tomorrow something terrible could happen."